Expectation: High/Low…

Exceeded: the Robot/Roboto. Love mode 4's movement...that thing just makes me want to throw my drum machine through a brutal fuzz and get down with the NIN vibes.

Also: superheterodyne receiver. Mine came out sounding even better than my EQD version to my ears...great little bit of fun.

Fell below... The miniheterodyne receiver. Might be user error, but that thing does not track nearly as well as it's bigger brother, and I really miss the master volume control. Great little engineering feat, but I resigned to keeping the larger enclosure.
 
Stickman393 said:
Exceeded: the Robot/Roboto. Love mode 4's movement...that thing just makes me want to throw my drum machine through a brutal fuzz and get down with the NIN vibes.
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Yeah that's my favorite dba circuit by far. I have been using mode one a lot lately but that mode 4 has been really fun for getting "extra out."
 
almondcity said:
I've been kinda underwhelmed by the Duocast and Benson Preamps I've built. They aren't bad just that I haven't fallen in love like I thought I would
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I'm with you. I like the Benson on bass with the bias pulled back a little bit, but not really much else beyond that.

My Broadcast sounds kinda harsh, even at low gain. I wish it had both HP & LP, like a Tilt EQ control, rather than just the HP as I feel like taming the high end would be helpful.
 
Harry Klippton said:
I've had lots of disappointments with commercial pedals but not so much with stuff I've made
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Same here. My biggest commercial disappointment is everything by Boss, that I’ve thrown in front of my Ceriatone 2202. An Sd-1, 2 different BF-2’s, a dd-3, a DM-2w, a CE-2w, an Ls-2, a TU-2… all of them added an excessive amount of hiss and/or white noise to my signal. That amp seriously, does not like boss buffers.
 
blackhatboojum said:
Same here. My biggest commercial disappointment is everything by Boss, that I’ve thrown in front of my Ceriatone 2202. An Sd-1, 2 different BF-2’s, a dd-3, a DM-2w, a CE-2w, an Ls-2, a TU-2… all of them added an excessive amount of hiss and/or white noise to my signal. That amp seriously, does not like boss buffers.
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This might help with that, and it’s a dead simple build.

Guitar Pickups Simulation

Schematics & circuits for guitar effects with vacuum tubes and solid state electronics. FREE downloads of schematics such as TS-9, Fuzz Face and other classic rock devices.
www.muzique.com www.muzique.com
 
blackhatboojum said:
That was exactly my experience with my Little Angel chorus build. “Hmm… it does a thing. On the display shelf it goes.”
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That display shelf will gather dust and then one day you will plug that pedal in with a different amp or a different set of ears and it will sound magical

or not work

but that magical sound is why I rarely sell pedals. That magically sound inspires more music out of me than anything. Just my two cents
 
I've been underwhelmed by two Musikding clones I've built. The Ampeg Scrambler (not enough fuzz and too loud). The Foxx Tone Machine was too scooped in the mids. I actually installed a 3 way toggle switch to increase the tone cap. I like it on the 15nF setting. Much more present and I think it matches the Danelectro 3699.
It's good now but I really need an octave circuit to sit on top of my Fuzz Face at any given gain setting without adding any gain. So next up is a Squidward.

I've also been underwhelmed by the Sunflower. It doesn't sound like a SunFace in the demos. Granted I don't have a cranked Marshall.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
Guardian OD aka Thorpyfx Peacekeeper. I like a lot of Adrian's pedals and when I heard he was doing a low gain pedal I assumed I'd love it. I built a guardian and once I sorted an issue with the bc549 I used it sounded fine but really just fine. I've been really underwhelmed by it tbh and keep thinking maybe I've screwed it up but having listened to a lot of demos now I'm not sure I have. It was billed as being a great all-rounder which could cover a lot of ground but I'd rather keep a klone, a blues breaker and Timmy style pedals all on my board together rather than the peacekeeper. I also noticed that out of the people who raved about it when it first came out none of them still have one on their boards anymore.
Click to expand...

So after approx a year I've finally gotten my soldering iron out and finished up a circuit then I lost maybe an hour or so rocking it before I box it. I was never happy with the guardian I had built before so decided to have another go as I just had this niggling doubt that it sounded harsher than it should.

This one sounds great. I've gone over all of the parts in the old build and every single one of them is the correct value and in the correct place so I've no idea why it just sounds bad. It's just really harsh and scratchy sounding. This new board sounds much much better and how I expected the peacekeeper to sound.

I'm gonna have to eat humble pie on this one and say it I was talking rubbish and tbe peacekeeper actually sounds great.
 
bowanderror said:
I'm with you. I like the Benson on bass with the bias pulled back a little bit, but not really much else beyond that.

My Broadcast sounds kinda harsh, even at low gain. I wish it had both HP & LP, like a Tilt EQ control, rather than just the HP as I feel like taming the high end would be helpful.
Click to expand...

Duocast with Hi-Cut

Hi there I have one of the Regent Sounds versions of the dual footswitch Broadcast with the high cut mod and thought it would be interesting to apply the same thing to the Duocast. Looking at the pedal there is a SPDT with a 10nf cap on the one side and a 4.7nf on the other. Each cap is...
forum.pedalpcb.com forum.pedalpcb.com
 
Chuck D. Bones said:
To me, the Life pedal is just a Green Ringer, a Rat and a SHO (none of which were designed by EQD) crammed into a box together.
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This. x1000.
A friend wanted me to help him build a Life Pedal. My response: “Yes, but in 3 separate enclosures, because you'll want to 1.) change the order, and 2.) sell or upgrade each component in time.”

It's hard to stop the Life Pedal Hype Train.
 
peccary said:
I built the Aion Meridian and it is underwhelming, but I am wondering if it's my fault. The changes are very subtle on it's own, but you can hear it affect other pedals following it in kind of weird ways. I need to find a good demo of the original to be sure. It's a bummer, too, because it's one of my better looking pedals I think.
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I need to amend this and call myself a dummy for my awful early reading of this pedal.

Since I posted this I've spent a good amount of time with it on my P bass and I have come to really like it in a lot of situations. Since I'm practicing with a band again with the aim to play live I am working out a small pedalboard for myself and the Meridian will be on it for sure.

The color knob and exciter are where it's at with this pedal and they can add some subtle character that I really like.
 
At least half the pedals I build are meh at best. But I keep building 'em until I find one that knocks my socks off.

Distortion pedals are the most boring to me. Many don't even make it into a box, including the Red Lama and the much-hyped DOD250 (which is technically an overdrive that people use for distortion.) But I'm cool with this. My mindset may change over the years so I keep around a lot of duds just in case.

Latest pedal to knock my socks off: Golden Falk (MIAB.) Makes me sound like a golden god. Makes my Sovtek sound like a Marshall.
 
I think the DOD 250 is technically a distortion that people use as an overdrive. :alien:

Not a pedal I built, but I thought I would really like the Earthquaker Devices Plumes because it was supposed to be the tube screamer for people that don't like tube screamers. I got one in a trade and almost immediately noticed a super high frequency whine from the voltage doubler. Sent it in for repair and got the email that said they couldn't duplicate my issue so they replaced the whole board. I was using a Pedal Power 2 Plus to supply the juice, so I know it was the pedal. Anyway, got the pedal back and it was quiet, but it was way too bright. At the time I was playing through a Vox AC15C2 that had two 12" Greenbacks. Contrary to what you might expect from a Vox, it was a really warm sounding amp. I had to roll the tone back on the Plumes to around 10 o'clock at least to get a useable sound and then it was just sort of dull.
 
cdwillis said:
I think the DOD 250 is technically a distortion that people use as an overdrive. :alien:
Click to expand...

I still have it somewhere. Just never stuck it in an enclosure. My takeaway at the time could be different than it is now, but I thought: “This is a trash can distortion,” same as the Electra distortion, same as the circuit built into Crate practice amps. No thank you.

The Red Llama was a similar disappointment. After reading Craig Anderton's book, I expected the hex chip to deliver tube-like sounds. But I got trash can. Perhaps I was using the wrong unbuffered chip. I'm on the cusp of trying the Obsidius for bass, but that Hexen Death Bubble inside makes me leary. (But whom.i.kiddin? I'm still gonna try one.)

Interesting that you mention the Plumes. I had a hard no bias from YouTube demos.
Then my neighbor brought one over for me to borrow. I unexpectedly loved it. Especially in mode 3 (asymmetrical.) There's a cool ghost of a fuzz underneath the clean tone, almost like they paralleled a fuzz signal with the clean. I still don't need to build one. But it was fun to play with for an afternoon.
 
xefned said:
The Red Llama was a similar disappointment. After reading Craig Anderton's book, I expected the hex chip to deliver tube-like sounds. But I got trash can. Perhaps I was using the wrong unbuffered chip. I'm on the cusp of trying the Obsidius for bass, but that Hexen Death Bubble inside makes me leary. (But whom.i.kiddin? I'm still gonna try one.)
Click to expand...

My first red llama was terrible and if I hadn't fallen in love with the model in my Helix I never would have perceviered.

Later I came accross a post from @Chuck D. Bones that some modern TI CD4049s were really noisy and he had better luck with a nos chip from a different manufacturer. So I had a hunt and picked up 2 NOS Motorola Mc14049. I tried one in my llama build and the difference was night and day. It sounded fantastic and I use it all the time
 
SillyOctpuss said:
My first red llama was terrible and if I hadn't fallen in love with the model in my Helix I never would have perceviered.

Later I came accross a post from @Chuck D. Bones that some modern TI CD4049s were really noisy and he had better luck with a nos chip from a different manufacturer. So I had a hunt and picked up 2 NOS Motorola Mc14049. I tried one in my llama build and the difference was night and day. It sounded fantastic and I use it all the time
Click to expand...

I recall reading that. I have not given up hope! Thanks for the reminder!
 
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